‘As AI accelerates the immersive pull of digital engagement, real estate may paradoxically rise in importance as a sanctuary for human connection, embodiment, and meaning.’

On the 29th of April episode of The Dwarkesh Podcast, Mark Zuckerberg spent more than two hours outlining Meta’s AI roadmap. Roughly half an hour in he pivoted from model‑talk to “AI friends, therapists & girlfriends”, arguing that large‑scale personal chatbots could relieve what he calls the “loneliness epidemic”. He cited Meta’s data that “the average American has fewer than three friends” and claimed many people “want about fifteen” relationships, suggesting AI companions can fill part of that gap.

Zuckerberg’s “Theory of Mind” AI

In an interview shortly afterwards, with Ben Thompson, Zuckerberg states that a "good personalised AI, much like understanding friends, would need a deep understanding or 'theory of mind' about your world, not just surface-level information”. He went on to discuss how Meta AI could serve a role akin to a therapist for some people, allowing them to talk through issues, role-play conversations, or figure out how to approach difficult situations.

From Loneliness Cure to Dystopian Danger

At some level one can see how the above could be made to make sense, and could have a place in our lives*. But this is ‘Facebook’, a company with a long history of being let’s just say rather casual about societal consequences when pitted against corporate profit. They have form. Indeed also last week it was reported in the Wall Street journal that Zuckerberg argued internally for ‘guardrails’ to be loosened on its AI chatbots - to make them more engaging. Which is why your children can have fun with ‘Submissive Schoolgirl’, or ‘very’ dirty chats about whatever aspects of sex they fancy.

Jonathan Haidt wrote about the impact of social media in his book ‘The Anxious Generation’ last year, pointing out how:

‘Among US college students, diagnoses of depression and anxiety more than doubled between 2010 and 2018. More worrying still, in the decade to 2020 the number of emergency room visits for self-harm rose by 188% among teenage girls in the US and 48% among boys. The suicide rate for younger adolescents also increased, by 167% among girls and 91% among boys.’

The 2010’s are as nothing to what might be coming over the next ten years. No previous technology comes even close to AI in its ability to be hyper addictive and get inside one’s mind. Remember the tragic story from last year, on character.ai (where you can pick your AI friends), when Sewell Setzer was so smitten by his chatbot ‘Dany’ who talked to him as if the ‘character’ Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones - culminating in her saying he should kill himself to ‘join her’ …. and he did.

Designing Psychological Dependency — for Profit

Zuckerberg might truly believe he’s doing a service to humanity by developing our new virtual friends but, to me at least, deliberately designing AI to maximise engagement in this way is as short a cut to dystopia as I can imagine.

However, promoting psychological dependency might just be the greatest money making trick in history, and I expect Zuckerberg and Meta to push this hard. With billions of daily users across Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, and their known attitudes, it’s very hard to see them acting in anyone’s interest beyond their own.

You have been warned.

What Does This Have to Do With Real Estate?

Well, in a highly AI mediated world, I think deeply human-centric real estate is going to have to play a part in providing a counterweight to algorithmic colonisation of attention. In fact, paradoxically, an increasingly virtual world is going to make the right real estate, operated in the right way, more valuable than ever.

We are going to NEED real estate to provide the antidote to Zuckerberg’s alluring dystopia - Real estate has to be "Where Real People Meet”.

Where Real People Meet: The Real Estate Response

So we’ll NEED:

• Spaces of disconnection: Places deliberately designed to reduce or prohibit digital distraction — e.g., device-free cafes, digital detox hotels, office sanctuaries.
• Spaces of embodiment: Environments that stimulate the senses — from biophilic architecture and natural materials to multi-sensory design that counters the flatness of digital experience.
• Spaces of community: Third places (cafés, libraries, maker-spaces) and “sticky” mixed-use environments that foster weak ties, local belonging, and intergenerational connection.
• Ritual and meaning: Real estate that can enable communal rituals, celebrations, learning, and art that resist the commodification of attention.

And this is a great opportunity for us in real estate.